The sequestration looms, if you fear it – or perhaps you don’t mind a little forced shave from the budget? Vote in the poll at the bottom of the post on your take about the sequestration. (And also vote for your favorite cartoon.) Meanwhile, here are varied opinions from political cartoonists…

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29 Responses to “Stanek Sunday funnies, “Sequestration” edition”

One more great example of Washington doing whatever it takes to keep the economy from growing. Disappointing that congress hasn’t even been in session to work on this. Most cuts don’t kick in for another month after the deadline – so there doesn’t seem to be the rush, but something does need to be figured out.

“One more great example of Washington doing whatever it takes to keep the economy from growing”
Ex-RINO, cry me a river- over cutting a measley 3%. Your idea on keeping the economy ‘healthy’ is to keep borrowing 40% of we spend every day so you can continue spending in order to keep the economy from shrinking. That is a doomed policy. It is not sustainable and it is a morally bankrupt to borrow away our children’s future in order to get their government giveaways and keep themselves fat today. Government should be forced to balance the budget period.

Terrific lineup of cartoons. Speaking of cartoons Obama’s “the sky is falling” routine is revealing himself to be a cartoonish liar. Even Bob Woodward had a piece on him: “Why is Obama still misleading everyone on the sequester?”

From living in a state run by the GOP (Wisconsin), I see first hand that the GOP doesn’t seem to be too concerned about jobs and the economy…but one key thing you don’t want to do in a fragile economy is have a lot of people going without paychecks. Take a look at who is freaking out the most about the cuts – governors. Especially Virginia (where a lot of federal workers live). The cuts aren’t going to kill people (well, maybe if some meat inspections go bad – and consumers will end up paying more for eggs and meat) – but these cuts surely will be felt in regards to the economy.

The Sconnies elected Walker and the Republican legislature — and then we re-elected them after the unions’ recall efforts — because we believe that fiscal restraint and living within our budget is the best way to sustain our economy and grow jobs.

If there is a better way to run Wisconsin, let us know and we will consider voting for your plan. But in the meantime, we do not blame the Republicans for doing what we told them to do.

We elected Walker to balance the budget, stop the train boondoggle, and repeal Doyle’s smoking ban. (He wimped out on the smoking ban pledge — dang it!)

But Gov. Walker and Rep. Andre Jacques succeeded in slowing the flow of taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood, and for that they will have my lifelong support. Finally — some Republicans with the backbone to follow up on their pro-life pledges!

Del – Where at? I’m over the in the La Crosse area. Enjoying the warm temperatures.
Anyway, we didn’t bring in Walker to balance the budget (if we did, we’re idiots) – the state legally has to balance the budget, so no matter who we elected, the budget would be balanced.
I just wonder what Walker has done good? I mean, you might like his policies, but we’re in the bottom 10 states for job growth (over the last year). His newest budgets put in future deficits that we’ll have to solve – he just turned down millions in medicaid money, which means that you and I will be paying more for people who won’t be covered. I’d love to look at the numbers and like Walker. At 42nd in the nation in job creation (and fewer jobs created than the 12 months before) – there simply isn’t much to like. Hard to argue that he’s been nothing but a failure in regards to economic matters.

Most of us blame the unions and local Democrats for the sluggish job growth. No sane employer would invest in Wisconsin during the two years of the recall fiasco. There was too much risk in trying to judge and make plans for the future. If an employer could expand in another state, then they did. The employers who were stuck in Wisconsin just sat and waited to open a business or take on more staff until after the elections were done. And even then, the Democrats blocked the new mining project jobs.

There is a reason why Sconnies elected Republicans to majority in our government: They represent us the way we want to be represented. Even the industrial union workers voted Republican, against the government union’s party. We all have families to raise.

I’m starting to see new restaurants open in the small towns of Dane County. That is my person indicator of economic optimism and growth. Local real estate market is picking up, too.

But Madison is special: Madison is a parasite that lives by sucking revenue off of the rest of the state. I’m hoping that the rest of Wisconsin is also looking up.

Del –
I can’t find any recent approval ratings for Walker – but you are correct in general, and it adds to the weird state we are in – when Walker won re-election (I thought it had more to do with how poor of a candidate Barrett was, but that’s beside point), Walker won by around 10, and Obama in the same exit polls led by a good ten -which means we have a lot of people who voted Walker and Obama in two consecutive elections. I’ll admit – I voted for Walker the first time around as well (again though, more based on how poor of a candidate I thought Barrett was).
Regardless, I disagree completely with your assessment of the the blame on everything else. A republican actually blocked the mining bill, and republicans still have issues with it (as should anybody who likes the outdoors and clean drinking water!). Republicans have controlled the government in Wisconsin for several years, and it simply isn’t working. I think they are concerned more about future jobs in Washington than they are about making Wisconsin run. Again, 42nd in job growth last year (after the recalls). And that was LOWER than the year before.
We’ll see what happens. Walker has a while left to get things figured out – but he wants to judge us on job growth, and so far, he’s not getting it.

“From living in a state run by the GOP (Wisconsin), I see first hand that the GOP doesn’t seem to be too concerned about jobs and the economy….I just wonder what Walker has done good?”
More BS Ex-RINO? Is that really the best you can do? It is precisely the conservative’s concern for the real economy that makes fiscal restraint a priority. You can’t borrow a successful economy from China. You probably understand that but your loyalty to the Democratic party drives you to make up bs like your quote above instead of seriously addressing economic issues. In your mind is it even a good thing that Walker went from a projected budget shortfall of 2.6 billion dollars to to a 400 million dollar surplus this year?

Not BS truth – if you want to look up the state rankings for job growth, feel free. We’re 42nd.
Regarding the $2.6 billion to a surplus – no, it doesn’t mean anything. By law, the state budget must be balanced. You seem surprised every time I explain that to you. The economy in general then had greater strength than expected, thus a small surplus. Walker’s new proposed budget has a long term structural deficit in it though, which isn’t good.
So I’m not impressed that he did what anybody else would have had to do. Your even mention of China is completely irrelevant – again, we can’t finance debt at the state level.
And I’m not impressed that we’re 42nd in the nation in job growth.

” By law, the state budget must be balanced. You seem surprised every time I explain that to you.”
By law the Senate is supposed to pass a budget every year but they haven’t even proposed one in four years…..does that surprise you?

I don’t propose to fence with Ex-GOP about Wisconsin politics. He is correct; there are a good many people who blame Walker and the Republicans for whatever goes wrong. And there are a good many people who blame the local Democrats for frustrating our recovery.

And there are a lot of folks who are pleased with track that Wisconsin is on. I am better off — my property taxes went down, mainly because we were able to work out a better deal for school-staff’s health insurance (We were no longer forced to buy the Teachers Union health insurance, and they were really gouging us.)

Pro-lifers in Wisconsin are especially well-satisfied. The Abortion Caucus is seething with frustration.

Obama and cronies invented this sequester, and he threatened to veto any bill which interrupted the automatic reductions in planned spending.
Now Obama has turned against this plan that he originated way back in 2011, and is blaming it on the Republicans.
Sequestration amounts to about $85 billion reduction in the spending increase slated for this year. One half of that is for the defense dept. It means that spending for the affected areas will only go up about 6-8 percent instead of going up 8-10 percent as baseline budgeting dictates.
To put this 85 billion sequestration for 2013 in perspective:
The government spends $3.5 trillion per year.
The government spent $50 billion on Tropical Storm Sandy relief.
The government spent $30 billion on extension of unemployment.
The government prints $85 billion per MONTH and props up Wall Street with it.

It is interesting to watch the things Ex-RINO avoids addressing each week. This week he won’t address the immorality of the government borrowing and spending an additional 40% beyond what they take and saddling the next generation (our children) with Ex-RINO’s debt just so that he can artificially support ‘today’s’ economy. ‘Crickets’

“Pro-lifers in Wisconsin are especially well-satisfied”
Del, Funny how Ex-RINO claims to be pro-life but he does not seem satisfied at all (or at least hasn’t said he is happy) about the defunding of the abortion industry in Wisconsin. Kinda reminds me of Sgt Schultz from Hogans’s Heroes. I can see Ex-RINO saying “I see nothhhinnng…nothhhhinnnng”

We should be mindful of Jill’s “Rule No. 1,” and avoid criticizing persons with ad hominem attacks.

I don’t know what Ex-GOP’s thought process is. He seems to think that Governor Walker’s policies are responsible for what he considers to be below-par job growth in Wisconsin. I do not see the connection.

I believe that Governor Walker is doing what the people of Wisconsin have asked him to do (he won his recall election by a greater margin on greater turnout). We know that our governors and presidents don’t create any jobs. But if they manage our government well, the jobs will come. Our leadership in Wisconsin was disrupted for two years, and our economy suffered for that.

Meanwhile — I don’t hear any buzz about the national spending cuts. Has Obama asked the press to stop talking about it?

truth –
A couple of things:
1) I work – I have a job that I work at 45 hours or so a week, so I’m not going to sit by the computer and respond all day.
2) We’ve been talking about the state budget of Wisconsin. You keep trying to change the subject. This isn’t some type of question and answer forum where I stand in the front of the room and people fire questions at me. Del and I are having a nice conversation – if it appears to be done, ask other questions that you’d like.
3) You dodge questions all the time. On our recent conversation about energy for instance, I asked you for numerous sources that you never cited, and I asked you a question about the price of gas and what you’d pay ($4 on gas from the US or $1 from Iran). Please, if you are going to get to those questions, answer them on the original thread. My point is, I wouldn’t complain about somebody not answering one of your questions when you dodge and weave all the time, ignoring what is inconvenient to your argument.

Del –
I just don’t see you how you can deduce anything but the connection. 42nd in job growth, and slower growth AFTER the whole recall process.
Maybe Wisconsin’s economy isn’t diverse enough – maybe we just have a bunch of dud businesses – tough to say for sure, but looking state to state, we’re not cutting it when compared to other states.
We’ll see how things move going forward, but I’m not too hopeful that Wisconsin is suddenly going to take off in job growth.
Not sure on the federal level cuts – there never seems to be as much news (on that sort of stuff) when congress isn’t in session. I read a bit of rumbling of a grand bargain plan developing that could take a while to work out. That’s really the best case scenario. These cuts are to small budget items and the military. The bulk of the work towards a manageable budget will be done through old people entitlement cuts and tax reform.

“It is interesting to watch the things Ex-RINO avoids addressing each week. This week he won’t address the immorality of the government borrowing and spending an additional 40% beyond what they take and saddling the next generation (our children) with Ex-RINO’s debt just so that he can artificially support ‘today’s’ economy. ‘Crickets’

x –
What I mean is, approx 20% of spending is Social Security, 21% is Medicare/Medicaid, 20% is defense, 7% for Veterans and 6% is interest – so that’s over 2/3’s of the budget right there.
5,000 border agents pulled from border patrol – thousands of teachers laid off – food inspections down. Sure am glad that polls are showing that the GOP will get most of the blame – because if this goes on a long time, things will get ugly!